There are a wide variety of animal feeders known in the art. In general, a tank which holds the feed is raised and lowered with respect to a pan, thereby increasing or decreasing the flow of feed to the pan. However, small capacity feeders may not be simply enlarged in order to obtain large capacity feeders. The sheet weight of the feed in a large tank would make such a feeder unworkable.
For this reason, large capacity feeders are designed differently than small feeders. Conventional large capacity feeders are either of the cylindrical type or the rectangular type. Cylindrical feeders utilize a vertically movable door or ring which will allow feed to escape from the tank. However, such devices have been found to be difficult to adjust, and are unreliable in maintaining the desired flow rate. Also, such feeders do not allow the animal to agitate the feed if moisture causes bridging to occur. Rectangular feeders suffer the same problems as cylindrical feeders, and generally feed fewer animals in the same amount of space.
It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide an improved animal feeder.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an animal feeder which will operate easily and maintain a large volume of feed.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a feeder with a feed flow control which is independent of the support of the tank.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a feeder with an anti-bridging device operable by animals.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.